


A better man.

by sebviathan



Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Pre-Canon, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: "The merciful thing to do would have been to kill it. I... kept it. I didn't allow its leg to heal correctly. I kept it in a cage and drew out its suffering for more than a year, Max, all because it ate some fruit."
Relationships: Max Arciniega/Gustavo Fring
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	A better man.

**Author's Note:**

> while trying to fall asleep it occurred to me how easily gus's story about the coati could be recontextualized, and naturally i proceeded to research chile's pinochet regime for the next 3 days

Gustavo holds his breath, anticipating the end of everything.

Max only remains silent long enough to give a soft shrug, arms still gently draped around him.

"You were only a child," he says simply.

That breath escapes him. "What?"

"You were just a child," Max repeats. "Seven years old, you said? That's—at that age, kids don't understand the world yet. They _certainly_ don't understand all the nuance of something like mercy or cruelty... They just don't. No matter how smart they are."

Soft as he speaks, he makes that sound so final. Like Gustavo should take it as face value, say nothing more than " _oh,_ " and let the subject fade into obscurity.

And with any other subject he would likely do exactly that, but—he just told the coati story. The same story that he has told or had told about him a hundred other times, all to men underneath him. Men he intended to make fear him by way of understanding his ruthlessness. _The_ coati story.

It made a thousand Chilean soldiers unquestioningly obey him, and it made Maximino Arciniega feel the need to _comfort_ him.

Gustavo twists around carefully, so he can face Max without leaving his arms for even a moment. He watches his lover's features soften and he feels something wrench inside of himself, knowing that he doesn't deserve so intimate a view.

"Have you ever met another child who did such a thing?"

Max's eyebrows knit together for a moment—a bit of tension that relaxes Gustavo, as it makes more sense to him.

"Well... I've met plenty of children who tried to keep wild animals as pets. My sister did—it didn't go very well for her, of course." He chuckles, with nothing but nostalgia on his face. As though he has no idea of the depths that Gustavo's question is prodding. "And... in general, yes, I would say young children don't yet know how to treat animals. They pull on dogs' tails and ears and they squeeze birds too tightly, and they... they sometimes put an injured animal in a cage when they should have either let it go free or put it out of its misery. Because they don't know better."

Another casual shrug, Max's features soft yet again. Gustavo almost wants to sit up now and shout about how he clearly doesn't _understand_ —

But then Max slides one hand up to cup Gustavo's face, and gives him a deep, imploring look that proves that he does.

" _You_ didn't know better, cariño. No man is born with compassion—for people, or animals, or anything else. He must learn it. How could you have been expected to know what was right when no one had taught you? And look at how much you have taught _yourself_ in spite of it all!"

Max's thumb wipes away a tear that Gustavo didn't even realize had escaped him.

"Now, I won't hear another word of this. You are a good man, Gustavo. The best I've ever known. There isn't a single thing you can tell me that will convince me otherwise."

 _A good man,_ his thoughts echo back to him. And again, and _again_ , as though to taunt him for how distinctly he knows that is not true.

His Max is correct about one thing, though. There may be a nearly infinite trove of facts that would remove all notions of sympathy for him, each clawing at the back of his throat at this very moment... but Gustavo _cannot_ tell him a single one of them. Not now. They pull each other down in their efforts to escape like crabs in a bucket, leaving no room for even a whisper.

Instead he swallows it all down and closes his eyes, feeling now how wet they've become—and then feels Max kissing his temples, wiping yet more tears away, muttering reassurances against his skin, running a hand through his hair and in circles on his back, pulling him closer...

Gustavo exhales a deep, shaky breath into Max's chest, and that is the only sound he makes for a long time.

***

The very first thing that ever stood out about Max was his kindness. Gustavo hates to acknowledge it, but they in fact would likely have never met otherwise. He wouldn't have chosen to walk down that particular street in downtown Santiago a second time had his eye not been caught by the poor street vendor giving away nearly half of his food to seemingly any child, elder, vagrant, or stray dog who asked.

The third time was to cement that that casually generous behavior was a pattern and not a fluke. And on his fourth visit through that street, he decided that he was done merely observing from a distance and finally approached that cart.

" _Coronel_!" the man addressed him, of course immediately having noticed Gustavo's lapel. "...What can I get you?"

The optimism in that man's gaze alone was unparalleled. Most others would have defaulted to assuming they were in some kind of trouble upon seeing him. This man only aimed to share his delicious chicken.

So Gustavo ordered some. Only after that did he say what he came to:

"Tell me, sir, how much of a profit can this cart possibly yield after you give away so much of your product for free?"

To his surprise, the vendor smiled. As though he wasn't the first person to have observed that fact.

"I break a little more than even," he shrugged. "I come away with enough to hold myself afloat, don't worry, Cor—"

"But why not come away with enough to hold yourself closer to comfort?" Gustavo shot back. "Judging by your popularity, you certainly have that option. Why give away what you can barely afford to begin with?"

There was a pause between them, then, that Gustavo has never forgotten. For one palpable moment, the vendor looked directly into his eyes. He could see the emotion blooming behind them so clearly.

"I... I suppose that... when I see that someone needs it more than I do, I just can't help myself."

Gustavo found himself nodding in understanding, even though he didn't yet, and saying nothing further until his food was handed to him. Then, he felt the strangest compulsion to take the other man's words as an example to follow, and he paid him ten times the charge.

He only discovered how delicious the chicken truly was after walking away.

*

The visit after that, he learned Max's name. The visit after _that_ , he learned that Max's intuitiveness with spices was matched with a passion for chemistry. That in lacking parental figures to teach him to cook in his adolescence, he reverse-engineered the basics on his own. That he himself was the first person to prod further upon hearing "oh, it's just chemistry" instead of just laughing.

And after that, he learned of Max's home in the slums. Of the pitiful state of being that Max considered to be "afloat."

He never stopped learning. About either Max or himself, really.

Gustavo had always been pragmatic to a fault. From a very young age he knew that it was the only way for someone with his background to get ahead, and when opportunity presented itself in the form of military conscription, he never looked back. He enjoyed almost none of what his job entailed, but he _did_ it, knowing that it granted him security for the moment and would one day pay off even more. He rose to the highest rank by being completely unlike the men around him and truly _thinking_ before each and every one of his actions.

Thoughtlessness was, therefore, a trait that Gustavo despised the most for many years. He'd been surrounded from all sides for all his life by those who would take every chance to exercise their power. Whether over himself or others, it was all the same to him—infuriatingly simple minds who gained satisfaction from behaving like animals. Actions that at _best_ served the purpose of brief entertainment, and at worst a catalyst for overall destruction.

For all of his sense of superiority for being the antithesis of such men, meanwhile, all of that thoughtless cruelty had still blinded him.

Before meeting Max, he had never conceived of such a thing as thoughtless _kindness_. Impulsive _charity_. Irrational, brazen, _chaotic_... gentleness?

Long after befriending him, Gustavo would still watch in awe as Max, who had grown up just as impoverished as himself, gave his hard work away to the streets of Santiago. The pragmatist inside of him would ache with frustration much like the audience of a tragic play, _knowing_ that if he just reached in he could change it, _fix_ it—

But there was another layer growing around his pragmatic core, now. A new, happier man—which was to say, the first time he felt truly happy at all. This man still longed to see Max receive what he _deserved_ for his work, but he also felt sincere admiration for how Max refused it.

With the passage of time, this man even felt such a desire to see Max happy that he was willing to take a massive financial, professional, and even social risk. He foresaw no innate personal gain, and yet, the decision was simple. He would invite Max to leave his hovel for good and come live with him instead, and he would pay for Max's formal education. He would provide the means for Max to pursue his dream.

Max kissed Gustavo for the first time mere minutes after he announced it. A deadly risk of his own—nevermind how hindsight made their whole song and dance so very obvious, Gustavo hadn't yet made his inclinations clear at all. Watching Max catch himself and jump back in fear broke his heart.

It wasn't the pragmatist who leapt forward to fix it.

*

Effectively, Max ruined him.

In Gustavo's world the best thing one could possibly be was closed off. At the core of his pragmatic self was an astounding ability to _truly_ not care about anything that was inconvenient to care about. To turn that feeling on and off like a lightswitch. Gustavo could remember only a brief period of time in his life before that ability consumed him and had him keep it turned off.

While in poverty, it kept him from wasting energy on anything pointless. It allowed him to care only about his own needs, and thus _feed_ only those needs. If he provided for anyone but himself it was for his family, rationalizing that as weak of a support system as they were, they were still something. And if he became too obviously ungrateful, they would in turn become nothing.

It allowed him to pull himself _out_ of that constant state of hunger and misery with barely any help. He taught himself how to run a business. He deliberately built and maintained a reputation. He punished those who stole from him and he owed no debts of his own.

And then, he piqued the interest of those above him. He was able to commit inhuman acts without complaint. He was able to command fear. He was deemed worthy of standing in the positions that he once looked up to with fear himself.

Max does know of this. _Any_ Chilean would have known that he had to be capable of horrible things the moment that they saw his uniform—but Gustavo wouldn't have kept the bare bones of his life a secret even if it were possible. The last thing he wanted was a double life.

The truly impossible thing was the fact that Max made him want to leave that life entirely. Max made him want to abandon the security that he'd worked so hard to achieve and instead chase a dream that he'd never even had before now. Max just... made him wish so badly that the more gruesome details of his life weren't true.

Gustavo wound up living as two men anyway, ironically to fulfill that exact wish as well as he could. He still had the sense not to act on his new impulses. But he also felt a spark of passion stronger than he ever had before—he felt _jealous_ , for the first time in his life, of someone else's abilities. Of _Max's_ ability to give his entire self to something, to love so fully and unabashedly that the emotion itself is rewarding enough. He wanted nothing more than to join him in that.

It was through that that Gustavo made the decision to betray the regime that he worked under. He could of course only do so in secret, so he continued up the ranks until he was right beside President Pinochet himself. He continued carrying out orders regardless of how difficult it became to feel indifferent to them. And he managed to do so because he had now established himself the inside man for a new organization of revolutionaries.

He wasn't in this for his own benefit anymore—he was in this for a _cause_. He believed in something now. For the first time, all thanks to Max, he _felt_ something.

But his new abilities didn't come without a price. In opening him up to the wonders of love and passion, Max had also opened him up to guilt. The two lives he now lived could never _truly_ be separate when his actions continued to weigh him down when he came home—and not only what he did for Pinochet, but what he did for those who plotted to overthrow him, too.

On all ends, Gustavo was destroying lives. He was imprisoning innocents and he was feigning friendship with men he knew would someday be tortured and killed. Manipulating the feelings of evil men was of course the least of it, but guilt was an emotion that didn't seem to have limits. It seized _every_ opportunity to eat at him. And it did so until he was almost nothing.

*

And then Max built him back up from scratch—almost quite literally, after the assassination of Pinochet failed and instead only injured the men around him. Gustavo was put on indefinite bedrest in order to treat all of his muscle damage, and as a painfully ironic thanks from Pinochet for protecting his life was granted permission to discharge permanently.

Just like that, he was out. But as he healed, the guilt came rushing back to him. About more than just his more overt sins, now.

Max had graduated from university some months ago. Gustavo had never thought of it this way during the past five years, but the massive favor he was doing for Max may as well have been an iron-clad hold on the man's life. If he'd ever had any reason to want to leave, he certainly wouldn't have shown it. He'd have felt obligated to stay.

Gustavo felt absolutely sick at the notion that he might have made Max feel like he had no choice. Worse so, he couldn't help but feel certain that it was true one way or another. If not through paying for his education, he must have manipulated Max somehow in order for him to be here. Neglected to show Max his true self.

_Surely if he saw the man buried deep in here, Max would want nothing to do with him._

_***_

An honorable and loyal man, of course. Gustavo feels those to be as true descriptors for himself as his skin is dark and his hair is short. Just as well a trustworthy man, a polite man, a patient man... But a _good_ man?

Max has never asked about the details of his work, and Gustavo has never told him for both of their sakes. Enough of the junta's atrocities were public knowledge anyway, and everything else—judging at _least_ by the fact that Max never asked—would only have made him needlessly uncomfortable. They would also have made the truth utterly unavoidable.

Without them, Gustavo understands how Max was able to rationalize. To simply tell him, _"I don't care what you've done. You had no choice but to follow orders."_

They're not in Chile anymore, though. There is no dictatorship over their heads, no more injuries incapacitating him, no education left for Max to complete—no apparent leverage on Gustavo's end, that is... and no weight left to Gustavo's name, even. He severed it when he had new documents made.

They're free of it all now. Max could easily be free of him, too, if he wanted.

And yet, telling him the worst of it still just doesn't feel like an option. To do so would be an evil act in and of itself: breaking Max's heart.

Instead Gustavo has resolved to start from the beginning. To tell more mundane stories of his lack of humanity and thus ease his lover into realizing that he deserves someone better. To give him an out without hurting him.

Or, he _was_ resolved. _Now_ he is curled into a sleeping Max's chest, so very far from sleep himself as he imagines how Max would respond to everything else he might tell him, no matter how incriminating. Gustavo hears his voice clearly and effortlessly—

_It was how you were raised. It's not your fault._

_How could you possibly know how to give love if you had never received it?_

_Your brain shut those feelings off to protect you. You were just doing your best to survive like all of us._

_That's in the past. Don't forget all the good you've done, too._

_The very fact that you feel so much remorse about this proves that you're good at heart._

_Even if you weren't good before, you most certainly are now. What matters to me is what you do_ now _, Gustavo._

That one somehow reaches him so vividly that he can't help but jolt as though startled awake. Max stirs almost immediately. He's always been a light sleeper—frankly, Gustavo has never understood why the man insists on cuddling so close when he inevitably wakes up several times through the night because of it.

"Mm—what's wrong?" he croaks, eyes still mostly closed, attempting to shift to get at face-level with Gustavo nevertheless.

...He thinks that he understands perfectly now, though. It's for the same reason that Max does everything else.

It's the reasoning that Gustavo gravitated toward years ago to begin with.

In the same moment that he comes to terms with how useless his earlier efforts were, he pulls himself up to the pillow and slides his hand over Max's cheek.

"Bad dream?" Max says like he already knows. Gustavo supposes he's not wrong.

"...It's over now," he mutters back, just to see the other man smile.

Something inside of him already decided long ago that Max was the purer, superior man. That Max's heart and soul were the examples he should follow. That Max was, more or less, right about everything.

So why couldn't he also be right about Gustavo himself?

Whether or not the man he was before knowing Max can ever be redeemed, maybe that just doesn't matter. Maybe the only version of himself that matters—that is, the only man who actually needs to live up to being _the best man that Max has ever known_ , is... the one that Max knows. And the one he'll continue to know.

Finally exhausted enough to sleep, Gustavo uses his last moments of energy to steal a kiss. The softness of Max's lips on his feel like home again instead of a gift meant for someone else.

He doesn't necessarily feel confident that he's a good man, now. He only knows that he is dedicated to keep getting better.

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to think that gustavo's philanthropy goes deeper than just him keeping up appearances. max is in literally everything else he does, after all.
> 
> also i think max's attitude toward meth was probably more or less the same as gale's - which would make it make sense that he could be practically a saint and also wanna produce a highly addictive drug. in case anyone was wondering how i compromised those ideas. though pls don't think i wanna make max out to just be a passive party in the relationship, this is just how it looks from gus's pov in this context.
> 
> UPDATE: i've now written an entire max pov fic that's somewhat of a companion piece to this fic, called [el hombre que soy hoy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25312912)


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